Wisdom Teeth: To Extract or Not?

What Are Wisdom Teeth?

Wisdom teeth typically grow in the 17-25 age years, emerging in the upper and lower back areas of the mouth. Since they are the last to appear in the human mouth, they’ve garnered the title “wisdom” and presumably make you wiser. Wisdom teeth were once very useful in human history, aiding our ancestors to chew and tear tough roots, meats, nuts, and plants. But because most of the human diet today is soft and cooked foods, the need for wisdom is virtually none, with anthropologists suggesting their DNA may soon completely disappear from genetics.

 

When to Extract?

When a wisdom tooth can’t break through the gums or is stuck under the gums, this means it’s impacted. A wisdom tooth that grows in the wrong angle due to lack of room in the mouth also is impacted. Partially impacted wisdom teeth, which only slightly emerge from the gums are also a cause for concern. 

 

Your Parker, CO dentist recommends an extraction when your wisdom tooth is impacted and you experience the following symptoms:

 

-Pain

-Infection

-Ulcers near the tooth

-Tooth decay

-Damage to nearby teeth

-Gum disease

-Trouble opening jaw

-Bleeding gums

-Sudden bad breath

 

Sometimes wisdom teeth, even if not impacted, don’t need to be removed because they cause no oral health issues. Here are examples of when you don’t need an extraction:

 

-Your wisdom teeth are healthy and fully grown in

-Your wisdom teeth are positioned correctly

-Your wisdom teeth are easily reached for proper dental hygiene

 

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

Wisdom Teeth: To Extract or Not?

 Wisdom teeth are usually synonymous with pain, infection, crowding, and swollen gums. The general solution to these issues is extraction. But what if you don’t experience any of those symptoms? At Ardas Family Dental located in Parker, CO, Dr. Roopi Kattaura provides expert care for wisdom teeth, from extractions to dental hygiene. 

What Are Wisdom Teeth?

Wisdom teeth typically grow in the 17-25 age years, emerging in the upper and lower back areas of the mouth. Since they are the last to appear in the human mouth, they’ve garnered the title “wisdom” and presumably make you wiser. Wisdom teeth were once very useful in human history, aiding our ancestors to chew and tear tough roots, meats, nuts, and plants. But because most of the human diet today is soft and cooked foods, the need for wisdom is virtually none, with anthropologists suggesting their DNA may soon completely disappear from genetics.

When to Extract?

When a wisdom tooth can’t break through the gums or is stuck under the gums, this means it’s impacted. A wisdom tooth that grows in the wrong angle due to lack of room in the mouth also is impacted. Partially impacted wisdom teeth, which only slightly emerge from the gums are also a cause for concern. 

Your Parker, CO dentist recommends an extraction when your wisdom tooth is impacted and you experience the following symptoms:

-Pain

-Infection

-Ulcers near the tooth

-Tooth decay

-Damage to nearby teeth

-Gum disease

-Trouble opening jaw

-Bleeding gums

-Sudden bad breath

Sometimes wisdom teeth, even if not impacted, don’t need to be removed because they cause no oral health issues. Here are examples of when you don’t need an extraction:

-Your wisdom teeth are healthy and fully grown in

-Your wisdom teeth are positioned correctly

-Your wisdom teeth are easily reached for proper dental hygiene

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

Pericoronitis and Wisdom Tooth Removal in Parker, CO

Wisdom tooth extractions aren’t taken lightly, but they are a common form of preventive care. One of the most important reasons for that is to prevent pericoronitis, which is inflammation surrounding an impacted dental crown. Dr. Roopi Kattaura, of Ardas Family Dental, regularly removes patients’ wisdom teeth efficiently after discussing their full range of options, so we wanted to take this opportunity to make sure everyone understands what pericoronitis is and how it is treated.

An impacted tooth is one that is unable to fully emerge. The wisdom teeth, being much larger than other teeth and the last to come in, frequently become impacted, leading to soreness and disruption in the alignment of the rest of the teeth. But when a wisdom tooth partly emerges, the flap of gum tissue covering it, called an operculum, becomes a trap for food debris. This allows bacteria to feed in a place they can’t be brushed or flossed out of, resulting in an infection that will cause swelling and the discharge of pus and has the potential to spread to other parts of the body.

A dental hygienist could clean an operculum, but that wouldn’t prevent a new infection from developing. A more lasting solution is to cut the operculum away. But even then, there is a possibility it will grow back, and if the impacted wisdom tooth is causing other problems, the best option may be to remove the tooth. Sometimes, only the crown needs to be removed, but there are also times when removing the roots will help to reduce overcrowding and remove the risk that they’ll continue to emerge and create a new gum flap.

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Veneers at Ardas Family Dental

Everybody should be proud of their teeth. If yours are stained, chipped, or don’t show as much enamel as you would like, the good news is that the process of restoring them may be simpler and easier than you think. At Ardas Family Dental in Parker, our experienced practitioners provide veneers to healthy patients who are looking for a cosmetic improvement. 

A veneer is a shell, usually made of porcelain, that fits over a natural tooth and provides it with a new surface. If a patient expresses an interest in them, we’ll conduct an examination to ensure they’re not suffering from gum disease and discuss their goals for treatment. At their second appointment, we’ll numb the patient and shave down their enamel to make room for the veneer, and make an impression of their reshaped teeth. A dental laboratory will then use the impression to manufacture the veneers according to the patient’s specified color. Once we receive the veneers, the patient can return to our office, where we’ll cement the veneers into place. In between treatments the patient will have been wearing artificial temporary tooth-covers, but the real veneers are designed to last.

As with natural tooth surfaces, veneers need to be brushed twice a day and flossed. They also shouldn’t be subjected to anything too hard or sticky, and patients will need to continue to wear mouth guards when playing sports. But well-cared for veneers can last for over a decade and allow a patient to chew and speak just as they would normally. Veneers are also a more moderate treatment option than whole-crown restorations or orthodontics, and can be used when a tooth is mildly cracked or impacted. 

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Differences Between Mouthwash in Parker, CO

Store shelves are filled with all sorts of mouthwash, and it’s easy for a consumer to become confused about which they should pick. You may even be wondering whether you should buy any at all. At Ardas Family Dental in Parker, we provide for the needs of patients of all ages and with all sorts of conditions. We’re happy to help patients determine what’s best for their own oral care, which is why we wanted to talk about what mouthwash can and can’t do.

Mouthwash may supplement twice-daily brushing and flossing, but it can never replace them. Therapeutic mouthwash kills oral bacteria that cause tooth decay and gum disease, but cosmetic mouthwash simply masks bad breath. Often, a patient would be prescribed therapeutic mouthwash if they had a tooth injury or were recovering from oral surgery and needed something that could dull their pain as well as provide additional defense against bacteria. Some mouthwashes come with other features, such as providing fluoride to make a patient’s enamel slightly stronger.

There is no evidence that the alcohol in mouthwash increases the risk of oral cancer, but non-alcoholic versions are available. Children under the age of six should not even use non-alcoholic mouthwash, and they should demonstrate that they are able to spit instead of swallowing it so they don’t risk over-exposure to fluoride. However, many people find that keeping some cosmetic mouthwash onhand is helpful for social situations, especially if they wear braces or dentures and can’t rely on sugar-free gum to combat halitosis. Just remember that the tongue needs to be scraped later to remove the source of the odor.

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Diet and Dental Erosion at Ardas Family Dental

Whether you’re suffering from a dental infection or mechanical damage to your teeth, we’re happy to help you at Ardas Family Dental in Parker, Colorado. Our team of experienced dental professionals will provide you with comfortable fillings and fluoride treatments to protect your teeth from further damage. But once you’re home, you’ll need to know how to protect your own teeth, so we thought it would be a good idea to examine some of the ways our diets contribute to dental erosion and decay.

 

Tooth decay is the result of an infection in the tooth’s outer layer, the enamel. Certain species of oral bacteria produce acid as a by-product of their cellular respiration, and the acid gets trapped in a sticky matrix of bacteria and the teeth’s biological film. The bacteria is able to quickly break down simple sugars, and they can also digest starch if it is left on the teeth for long enough.

 

But teeth can also suffer from direct exposure to acid. Citric juice and soft drinks have a large amount of acid as well as simple sugar, and citric juice is often used as a flavoring in sour candy and energy gel. Citric acid can also trigger acid reflux from the stomach, as can alcohol, onions, garlic, and red meat. Besides reducing our intake of these foods, we can also combat acidic erosion by making sure we are properly hydrated. Water not only washes away acid and sugar, but also helps us to produce more saliva, somewhat balancing acid’s chemical effect. We can also produce more saliva by chewing sugarfree gum, which will remove food debris. And as always, brushing and flossing will remove bacteria, the food debris they consume, and the acid they produce.

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Treating TMD and Toothaches at Ardas Family Dental

Amid all the extra stress people are under, many have noticed that they’ve developed pain in their jaws, necks, and teeth. If you’re one of them, you may be suffering from temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMD. Besides being painful, this disorder may lead you to crack your teeth, or at least make it difficult for you to speak or chew. At Ardas Family Dental, we help patients suffering from TMD to find personalized solutions, but first, let’s take a closer look at what contributes to it.

The temporomandibular joints are the place on either side of our head where the lower jaw (the mandible) connects to the rest of the skull. Each temporomandibular joint needs to be able to exert a great deal of force, but be able to move freely in every direction. When people are under stress, they tend to clench their jaws, and during their sleep, they may grind their teeth together, which is a habit called bruxism. The pressure generated by bruxism can inflame the temporomandibular joints, causing them to become stiff and painful. It can also wear down tooth enamel, push teeth into new positions, or cause them to break completely.

Sometimes, a rheumatoid condition could be contributing to TMD, and patients who are under severe stress may need psychological counseling. But a dentist can help by providing patients with custom-fitted night guards. These oral appliances will comfortably keep the jaws separate, preventing the teeth from grinding together. We can also provide patients with partial crowns and other restorations for teeth that have already suffered damage and help them determine whether orthodontic therapy is needed.

Dr. Roopi Kattaura operates Ardas Family Dental at 10233 S Parker Rd, Suite 205, Parker, Colorado. Call 720-459-8420 or visit Ardas Family Dental and fill out a contact sheet.